Petition to Educate High School Students on the Harmful Consequences of Drug Abuse

Today in school many high school students are abusing drugs due to the lack of education in our schools concerning drug abuse. As you may already know, drug abuse is the excessive use of drugs over a long period of time, ultimately leading to the drug controlling you instead of you controlling it. This issue is a problem in society because drug abuse has taken countless lives from precious families and caused many to have to live with a medical disorder for the rest of their life. This is also a problem in society because this issue can happen anywhere in society, due to the fact that people may never know when someone will decide to abuse drugs. Drug abuse is affecting our community, specifically high school students, who are often abusing drugs because of the number one root cause on why people abuse drugs: peer pressure. After conducting our survey to gather the thoughts of high schools students on what they thought the number one root cause was, we found out that 85% of our survey respondents, 64 out of 74 respondents, thought that peer pressure was the number one root cases on why people abuse drugs. Our evidence highlights that people believe peer pressure is the number one root cause on why people abuse drugs and we can tackle that root cause with education.

We ask that you demand a week of the school year is to be reserved for teaching high school students the harmful consequences and effects of drug abuse. With a week in the curriculum teaching kids the harmful effects on drug abuse, we can target the root cause of this issue: peer pressure. As more high school students are educated about the harmful unforeseen consequences that come with drug abuse, there would be less high school students abusing drugs. And with less students abusing drug, there would be less pressure from peers encouraging others to abuse drugs. With less pressure from others, we conclusively defeat peer pressure. Additionally, with more students being educated on this issue, they can help encourage other classmates to help prevent or stop drug abuse because they know that it is harming their friend’s health and would want to help their classmate get better. As revealed in an interview with a brief intervention specialist who is referred to students who are having drug and alcohol problems and many other problems, he also believed that education is one of the most suitable solution for helping students prevent drug abuse. This ultimately tackles the number one root cause of drug abuse by using education as the solution; as a result, we demand that you require a week of the curriculum is reserved for teaching high school students about the impacts drug abuse has on their life.